The Walk (7 page)

Buck holstered his gun. “You got some rope in your pack. We’ll lower you down.”

“First of all, that rope is for tying up a roll of electric cables, it’s not strong enough to hold a man,” Marty said. “Secondly, why am I the guy?”

“Because you’re the lightest of the three of us,” Buck said. “And even if you weren’t, you’ve been shot in the arm.”

“You said I was grazed.”

“Stop being a pussy,” Buck said.

Marty looked at the teetering car again, then down at the pavement, and the body splattered on it. His eyes drifted from the body to the pile of filthy blankets and he remembered something he saw on Cinemax late one night, one of those soft-core women-in-prison movies. The busty, sexually-adventurous convicts escaped using bed-sheets. It wasn’t a very secure prison, the guards weren’t too bright, but the girls were pretty resourceful and the principle was sound.

Marty clutched his bloody shoulder and got up. “I got an idea. You’re going to have to find a few more people to help.”

1
:30 p.m. Tuesday

The smell from the urine-starched blankets tied around his chest and wrapped under his shoulders was overpowering. If the drop didn’t kill Marty, the odor would.

The bum’s blankets were tied together end-to-end and securely wound with Marty’s rope. The apparatus trailed behind him a few feet to Buck, Enrique, and half-a-dozen other survivors who held the other end as if preparing for a game of tug-of-war.

Marty stood on the edge of the precipice, beside the Toyota, gathering his courage. The ticks, fleas, and lice were probably smart enough to abandon the blankets now. No sense taking a fall with this fool, a guy who mistook
Caged Party Bimbos
for an instructional video on urban rescues.

“We’re ready,” Buck yelled.

“I’m not,” Marty muttered, pulling his leather work gloves tight over his hands.

The car was hanging by just one rear wheel, held in place by just a few pieces of twisted rebar. He couldn’t see the kid, the car was tipped too far forward, but he could hear him whining in terror.

Marty had no idea what he was going to do, except not look down. He turned to the men holding the rope, strangers he didn’t know an hour ago and still didn’t know right now. He was entrusting them, and a make-shift rope made of a dozen soiled blankets, with his life.

“You sure you can hold me?” Marty asked.

“Two more seconds and I’ll push you,” Buck said. “Stop stalling. That car isn’t going to hold much longer.”

Marty took a deep breath and moved right up to the edge. It was a long drop. Chances of survival if he fell were zero.

“Shit,” he whispered, sitting down.

He grabbed two pieces of rebar and slid slowly over the edge, bits of concrete shaking loose, falling into space and shattering on the street below.

Shit. Shit.
Shit
.

Marty slid a bit further, his legs dangling over the side. Soon there would be nothing for him to hold on to at all.

“Do you have me?” he yelled.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Buck grunted.

Marty let go of the rebar and fell, screaming. The blanket dug into Marty’s armpits, jerking his shoulders up against his neck. But it held, stopping his fall, but jerking the cell phone out of his pocket. He dangled, spinning beside the car, making the mistake of looking down just as his cell phone shattered on the pavement.

Oh God.

Not only was he going to die, now he couldn’t call anyone to tell them about it.

He reached out and touched the car to stop his spin, and that’s when he saw the kid, buckled into the front seat, eyes wide with horror, hands out in front of him, flat against the dashboard. The kid was black, maybe six or seven years old. He was staring at Marty like he was a big, vicious spider hanging outside the window.

“Stay calm,” Marty said, “Don’t move.”

As if the kid was going anywhere. What a dumb thing to say. But Marty couldn’t think of anything else. He wasn’t even sure how to get the kid out of there without tipping the car over. Opening the door was probably too risky. It could shift things too suddenly.

“What’s your name?”

“Franklin!” It came out as a scream.

“Okay, Franklin, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to roll down the window.”

The kid looked at him and shook his head, his teeth chattering in fright. No fucking way, not for this guy.

“You have to,” Marty said, his voice cracking with fear. If he was counting on winning the kid over with his own courage, he could forget about it.

The kid just kept shaking his head. “No!”

“Listen, kid, I know how stupid and scared I look. Some jerk in a bunch of dirty blankets. You think you’d rather take your chances in the car.” From the expression on Franklin’s face, Marty knew he read the kid right. “But Franklin, the truth is, the car is going to fall and you will die. I may get you killed, too, but at least you will have tried to save yourself.”

The kid looked at him, then looked forward, out the broken windshield at the ground below. Marty knew what he was thinking about. He was thinking about it, too.

“What would he want you to do?” Marty asked.

The blanket slipped a bit, shaking free more chunks of concrete. Marty inadvertently screamed again, grabbing at the air.

“Stop fucking around!” Buck yelled from above.

Something in Buck’s voice, perhaps the violence and anger, must have made a difference, because Franklin slowly rolled down the window. The car swayed and creaked as he slightly shifted his weight. Marty gently reached into the open window and held the door to steady himself. He could see that Franklin had wet his pants. Marty didn’t blame him.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to unbuckle yourself, grab hold of my arm, and I’m going to slowly pull you out.”

Franklin stared at him. “I can’t.”

“You have to, Franklin.” Marty said. “I won’t drop you. I promise.” He hoped it was a promise he could keep. His mind immediately, uncontrollably flashed to that horrific, opening scene in
Cliffhanger
.

Franklin must have seen the doubt skirt across Marty’s eyes. “I want to wait for the firemen.”

They were losing valuable seconds. And the longer Marty dangled, the more terrified Marty was becoming. What little resolve he had was fading fast and so was the strength of the men holding him. Marty imagined what the audience was seeing and he wasn’t, the loose knots slowly becoming unfurled, the blanket ripping on the sharp edge of concrete. And they would all be screaming, why doesn’t that dumb fucking idiot do something?

“Franklin, there are no firemen. There will never be any firemen. I am it. Now get out of the goddamn car.”

The kid started crying again, but he unbuckled his belt. Franklin immediately fell forward against the dash, the car teetering suddenly with the shift in weight. Marty reached in, grabbed the back of Franklin’s shirt with both hands, and yanked with all his strength just as the Toyota pitched forward, falling free.

Franklin dangled from Marty’s hands, his shirt riding up his body, his legs kicking in open space, as the car flipped end-over-end and smacked into the ground below. Marty and the kid were both screaming now, spinning in the air, hanging in terror.

God, the kid was heavy. Marty had never held anything so heavy, it felt like the kid was tearing his arms from his sockets, ripping tendons, shredding muscles. He couldn’t possibly hold him another second.

The kid grabbed Marty and hugged him tightly, his face pressed against Marty’s legs, muffling his cries. But Marty screamed loud and hard, from the bottom of his lungs, enough for both of them.

Buck and Enrique pulled them up onto the overpass and dragged them a few feet from the edge before letting go. The kid broke free of Marty the second they were safe and ran, sobbing. Enrique chased after him, caught him, and pulled him into a hug.

Marty sat up, pulling the piss-soaked blankets off as fast as he could. Buck offered him his hand. Marty swatted it away.

“Get away from me,” Marty said, shakily getting to his feet. He was shivering all over. Buck reached out to him again and Marty punched him in the face.

It wasn’t much of a punch, not much more than a slap, really. His fist was shaking too much to have any power behind it. But it was the first time Marty had swung at anyone since third grade. His pugilistic skills hadn’t improved any since then.

Marty was as surprised by the punch as Buck was, but he didn’t regret it. Marty had never been so angry or so scared.

Buck could easily have flattened Marty with a return blow. Instead, the big man just grinned.

“Who taught you how to fight? The same clown who showed you how to run?” Buck said. “That’s got to change if you’re gonna pull off this hero shit.”

“I don’t want to be a hero,” Marty screamed at him. “I’d like to live.”

“Take it easy. Now that you’ve done it, it will be easier next time.”

“I’m going home,” Marty found his back pack and put it on. “I’m not stopping for anybody, do you understand me?”

Buck walked towards him. “We’ll see what happens.”

Marty pointed at Buck and backed away. “Stay the hell away from me, you crazy, psycho, son-of-a-bitch.”

“We’re going the same way.”

“I’m going alone,” Marty said. “I don’t want to see you ever again.”

Buck looked at Marty, truly dumbfounded. “What are you so pissed off for?”

Marty couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What was there the guy didn’t get?

“You shot me,” Marty yelled. “You wrapped me in piss blankets and dangled me off the edge of a collapsed overpass!”

“That part was your idea. And what the fuck difference does it make now? You saved the kid’s life.”

Yes, he did
.

Marty turned and looked at Franklin, still crying, still hugging Enrique, a complete stranger. The nightmare was over. Thanks to Marty Slack.

He’d actually plucked a frightened child from a car teetering on the brink of a three-story drop.

Holy shit.

Maybe there was a little Charlton Heston in him after all.

Marty felt a proud smile starting on his face and quickly suppressed it, reminding himself that he was angry. Furious. Outraged.

He shot you. He forced you into this at gunpoint. You could have been killed! The only reason you’re still alive is dumb luck. How much more of that do you think you have left?

The scowl returned. He turned back to confront Buck.

“I could just as easily have ended up dead, because you put a gun to my head and made me do that stupid, suicidal stunt,” Marty said. “You are a homicidal Neanderthal psycho. I don’t want you near me, understand? Go away. Get somebody else killed.”

Marty turned around and marched off, passing Enrique and Franklin without looking at them. He didn’t want to be drawn in any deeper into the kid’s problems, or Enrique’s for that matter. All he wanted to do was go home, put as many miles between himself and all of this as he could.

“Stop or I’ll shoot,” Buck said.

He gave Buck the finger without looking back and kept right on walking.

2
:20 p.m. Tuesday

Marty marched across Glendale Avenue, heading west, staying clear of the overpass on his left.

It was already mid-afternoon and he’d only covered three or four miles since he started. But Marty felt like he’d already walked a hundred. Every joint in his body throbbed in pain. At this rate, it would take him days to get home.

He glanced to his right. He was passing a stark, white, windowless building that looked like a mausoleum. It might as well have been. A sign near the flat roof read “Bob Baker’s Marionette Theatre,” which was now showing a program called “It’s a Musical World.”

Marty had never heard of the place, and wondered who bothered coming to this godforsaken spot to see such rudimentary entertainment. What kid would chose to see a puppet on strings over his PlayStation, the Internet, or a digital-effects blockbuster on DVD? Seeing a show at the marionette theatre made as much sense to Marty as gathering in a cave to watch Grog scratch stick figures on the stone.

He was so caught up in distracting himself with a pointless rumination on the irrelevance of puppetry in a modern world that he didn’t see the homeless man waving the rusty steak knife until they were face-to-face.

It looked like someone had used the bearded bum’s scabby face to clean a couple hundred very dirty dishes. And he smelled just like Marty. A walking urinal.

“You stole my stuff,” the man hissed through broken, rotting teeth. “I saw you.”

So now Marty knew why they smelled alike. Those piss-soaked blankets belonged to this Brillo-faced guy.

“I didn’t steal your blankets—” Marty started to say.

“I saw you,” the bum interrupted. “Motherfucker.”

“I just borrowed them to rescue the kid. You saw me rescue the kid, right?”

“Give me my stuff,” the man repeated. “I want my stuff.”

“I don’t have it,” Marty replied. “It’s on the overpass. You’re welcome to it. Thanks for the loan.”

“Motherfucker,” The bum thrust the knife at Marty, nearly stabbing him with it. Marty jerked back defensively.

“Hey, I’m sorry about borrowing your stuff without asking, but it’s all there, right on the overpass,” Marty said. “I had to use them to save the kid. If you saw me take the blankets, you must have seen that, too.”

The bum studied Marty with the goopy, glassy eyes of a hound. “Give me your stuff.”

“Your blankets are up there. Just go get them.”

“Give me your stuff.” The bum motioned to the gym bag. “I want your stuff.”

“No.”

“Motherfucker!” The bum poked the air between them with the knife. “Give me your stuff or I’ll stick you.”

Marty knew he would, too. But there was no way he was giving up his survival kit. Certainly not in exchange for a pile of piss-drenched rags he never wanted to begin with. No, he was not giving his pack up.

“You want it?” Marty asked, slipping it off his shoulders. “Fine, you can have it. Motherfucker.”